on their own

Last night, I had drinks with my friend Sam. I called him to tell him that my meeting had gone longer than I expected, and by the time I got to the restaurant, slightly out of breath from walking too fast in high heels, Sam was already sitting at a table on the deck, drinking a martini. His mouth twitched when I ordered a pomegranate sidecar rimmed with sugar. Then, as he usually does, he began talking about his daughters.

Two of his daughters play soccer, while the third plays the cello. Or maybe it’s the other way round. Oldest daughter, her sights fixed firmly on medical school, is spending the summer as a teaching assistant in a biochemistry course. Middle daughter will be in Italy for six weeks with her latest boyfriend. And youngest daughter will be buying new sheets and a new laptop and getting ready to head off to college in the fall.

For as long as I’ve known him, Sam’s evenings and weekends have been filled with tournaments and concerts and ski trips and, more recently, with SATs and campus visits. Now, all that is coming to an end. “Maybe we’ll do some more traveling,” he says, but his heart isn’t in it. Sam puts his glass down and looks at the lights on the other side of the harbor. I wish I could tell him that everything’s going to be all right.